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Was it brave or stupid? Was it the shot of a modern batting genius or just an act of self-destruction that typified England’s blighted Ashes campaign?
Certainly the sight of Harry Brook charging Mitchell Starc, one of the best bowlers in the world and the star of Australia’s series-winning attack, first ball with England 8-3 in reply to Australia’s 152 all out was surreal. Then again, this was a bonkers Boxing Day.
It does not bear thinking about the reaction had Brook edged that first ball and been dismissed attempting to smash Starc out of the vast MCG with England in dire straits.
But, by the end of the first day of the fourth Test on which 20 wickets fell and ended with Australia sending in Scott Boland as nightwatchman to open the batting at the start of their second innings, there did appear more of a method to Brook’s apparent madness.
It was as good as any strategy cooked up to combat a Melbourne pitch on which the curator had left 10 millimetres of grass. That playing surface duly provided prodigious seam movement that was exploited first by England but then, as we have come to expect in this series, far more successfully by Australia.
Harry Brook, having danced down the wicket, lap hooks Mitchell Starc to the fine-leg boundary (Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
England really did look on top when they finally pitched the ball up and denied Australia width, with Josh Tongue taking five wickets and Gus Atkinson outstanding in support to skittle their hosts after Ben Stokes had won an important toss.
But normal service had been resumed by the close in front of the largest recorded crowd to watch a day of Test cricket, 94,199, as Australia in essence said “anything you can do, we can do better” and bowled England out in one elongated session for just 110.
Brook made 41 of those off 34 balls and, in so doing, showed why he is one of the best and most exciting batters in the world, but one of the most divisive figures in this England side; a lightning rod for all things negative aimed at ‘Bazball’.
The sensible thing to do as Brook arrived at the crease with England in big trouble would have been to have a look at Starc and the Australian bowling at the very least. To try to join his senior partner Joe Root in steadying the England ship and apply himself in the most demanding of first-day batting conditions.
But Brook rarely sees it that way.
Harry Brook hits to leg at the MCG (Robbie Stephenson/PA Images via Getty Images)
Far from reining himself in, as he said he would after being complicit in England’s self-destructive batting in Perth and Brisbane, he ignited the dying embers of Bazball by sprinting towards the danger.
He may have missed that initial charge but Brook was soon at it again and crashed Starc for the earliest six, after just 8.1 overs, in any Test innings where four wickets had fallen. Of his first 15 balls, Brook advanced down the wicket to five of them.
“The score is 26-4 and there are four men on the boundary,” spluttered a bemused former England captain Sir Alastair Cook on TNT, not knowing whether to be outraged by Brook’s audacity or to applaud it.
Harry Brook slams Mitchell Starc over cover for six 🙌
📺 Watch #TheAshes LIVE on TNT Sports and discovery+ pic.twitter.com/nksngnfw7x
— Cricket on TNT Sports (@cricketontnt) December 26, 2025
Perhaps we should not have been surprised. Brook told the BBC before the third Test in Adelaide that “most of the time when I’ve been overly aggressive is when we’ve lost early wickets and I’ve tried to counter-punch and put them back under pressure”.
The statistics show that it has been his best way to go. Four times in the past two years he had entered the fray with England three down for fewer than 30 and, on three of those occasions as the table below shows, he made rapid centuries.
Harry Brook’s counter punching
186
176
New Zealand
Wellington
2023
26
40
Pakistan
Rawalpindi
2024
123
115
New Zealand
Wellington
2024
158
234
India
Birmingham
2025
41
34
Australia
Melbourne
2025
If he had been able to do it his way for another hour in Melbourne he would have transformed this Test, but he eventually fell trying to defend a ball from Boland that jagged back 16 centimetres after pitching to move from the top of off stump to the top of leg, hitting Brook’s pad on the way.
Brook did not attempt to review what he thought was a plumb leg before wicket, but such was the lavish movement that the ball would only just have clipped leg stump.
Compare that to the fortunes of Root, who did try to play responsibly and block his way out of trouble but has rarely looked as uncomfortable. He made a 15-ball duck before nicking behind to become one of four victims claimed by the returning Michael Neser.
Australia celebrate seeing the back of England’s No 5 (Philip Brown/Getty Images)
Boland, who brought the loudest cheer of the day when he edged the last ball of a ridiculous opening day for four, is confident Australia have worked out the best way to bowl at Brook.
“He tried to take us on and we set some different fields,” said the local hero, the pick of all the bowlers on either side with 3-30. “It sometimes feels chaotic when Brook’s batting because he tries to put the pressure so much on to you that you can lose what you’re trying to do.
“But, four games into the series, we’re now pretty clear how we want to bowl when guys are going like that. We sort of worked out, maybe from the second innings in Perth, that deep mid-off and deep point keep him a bit stiller. Then when the wicket’s a bit flatter and there’s not much bounce we can get with Caz (wicketkeeper Alex Carey) up to the stumps.”
Brook will always thrill and exasperate in equal measure. He threw his wicket away at the Oval against India last summer with the finishing line in sight, thinking his job was done after making 111. India went on to win by six runs.
Then he showed the worst excesses of his approach with a reckless three-ball duck in that second innings of the first Test in Perth last month, before swishing irresponsibly at Starc under the lights in the second game in Brisbane.
There were many who felt Brook’s dismissal attempting to reverse sweep Nathan Lyon in the third Test in Adelaide was just as culpable in England’s demise though, to be fair, he had been executing that shot productively before simply missing one.
Harry Brook’s fateful reverse sweep in the second innings at Adelaide (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
A look at Brook’s record should end any doubts that he is a rare talent. He was averaging 54.41 from 33 Tests before this game and, during the mayhem in Melbourne, went to 3,000 runs in his 57th innings — quicker than any Englishman in history bar Herbert Sutcliffe.
He is England’s white-ball captain and is now Stokes’ Test deputy, so there is no question the powers that be respect his cricketing brain as well as his talent.
Brook’s tactics may not have rescued England from what looks like another uphill battle in this fourth Test — and it will be a huge surprise if this match even goes into a third day — but they work more often than not, so supporters will just have to take his rough with the smooth.
Cook, again on TNT, said after day one that this pitch was too much in favour of the bowlers and that curator Matt Page had told him he expected it to be harder to bat on during day two.
If that is the case then perhaps only another calculated assault from Brook can give England any chance of finally registering a win in this series. Otherwise yet another Australia victory and the humiliation of another 5-0 defeat looms larger.